January’s Happiness Project Themes

Tada! The unveiling of January’s Happiness Project Themes has arrived.

I am still refining my Happiness Project themes and accompanying action steps. I think I often take on more than I should especially when considering I regularly pick up stray action steps throughout the month.

While, in The Happiness Project book, Gretchen Rubin was precise, organized, and methodical. Florence may have to be content with being disorganized, random, and spontaneous.

Despite my unconventional mapping skills, I am having a ball with the experiment. I don’t think I will quit at the one year mark. This project may become a lifetime one for me. I love it, and it has made me happier.

New Goals

I started the project with a spreadsheet filled with themes, action steps, and notes. Naturally, every month, my list shortens as I mark off completed goals. However, my list also grows as new ideas come to me. My spreadsheet has turned into a fluid tool rather than a coherent, concise, and rigid plan.

This type of a flowing movement fits my personality. I don’t perform well in overly rigid systems. I am creative and have imagination, which comes with a certain degree of disorderliness. I have come to accept this aspect of my personality and consequently, my life. Being authentic means being okay with being Florence with all it entails.

Comparing is a joy killer. I accept that a Florence Happiness Project won’t look much like a Gretchen Rubin Happiness Project or a Jane Doe Happiness Project. To me, this is the beauty of this experiment. You can mold it to fit your goals, your life, your journey. This project becomes your comfy garment patiently crafted by your hands.

Comparisons

No need comparing to Gretchen, Florence, Suzie, Bob, whomever because it does not matter, a lesson we would all do well to learn by heart. Don’t compare, ever. In your circles, there will always be an individual with less talent, less beauty, less something to shore up your insecurities. At the same time, there will also be someone with more talent, more allure and more “something” to make you feel you are not enough. I have been on this hamster wheel too often not to be acutely aware of the place it leads which, in case you wonder, is nowhere.

Comparisons kill. Everything. They destroy joy, happiness, contentment, love, friendship, self-worth, and I could go on but, mercifully, will not. So what there is someone smarter? So what, so and so’s pie is better? So what?

Realize that for others, you are THE Achille’s heel, the one who seems to have it all and altogether to boot. Appearances can – and often are – deceiving.

My best advice, no that you asked, is simply “rock you.” There is only one you. You are unique with your amazing abilities as well as less than stellar traits. Welcome to the “I am a human being” club. It is wondrous, and it sucks all the same time and THIS my friend is the reason one why this human journey is magnificent.